Washington, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 8th Jun, 2024) William Anders, the former US astronaut who took the historic "Earthrise" photo space over 55 years ago, in a plane crash on Friday at the age of 90, his said. Anders had been piloting a small plane which crashed off the coast of state on Friday morning, his son told US . Anders was alone in the plane.
His body was later recovered by a dive team, The Times reported, quoting a Coast Guard spokesperson. A member of the Apollo 8 mission in 1968, Anders became one of the first humans to orbit the Moon, along with fellow Americans Frank Borman and James Lovell. The crew circled the Moon 10 times without landing, before successfully returning to Earth on 27, 1968.
On one of the lunar orbits, Anders captured a photo of the bright blue Earth against the vast darkness of space, with the Moon's cratered surface in the foreground. "We'd been going backwards and upside down, didn't really see the Earth or the Sun, and when we rolled around and came around and saw the first Earthrise," he said in a 1997 NASA history interview. "(T)hat certainly was, by far, the most impressive thing.
To see this very delicate, colorful orb which to me looked like a tree ornament coming up over this very stark, ugly lunar landscape." The "Earthrise" photo is frequently listed in roundups of key historical images, and was included in Life Magazine's book "100 Photographs that Changed The ." An original version of the photo sold at a Copenha.